Is Powerchute required?

[Anonymous user]

I'm about to purchase a RS1300LCD or RS1500LCD. I prefer minimum software running while I record audio. I'm on XP and I generally disable 3/4th of the standard windows applications that run in the background including the clock, antivirus, etc, etc, etc because each of these apps typically ping the system and can leave tiny ticks/glitches on otherwise pristine audio. So my question is, will I have fully functionality of the UPS if I don't install the Powerchute software? It seems as a minimum there will be USB port in use.

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Wayne

[Cap1_apc]

Hello,

The nice part about the LCD models is that you can make configuration changes with help from the screen and the buttons, where normally PowerChute would be required.

However, if you are looking for graceful shutdown of your computer when the UPS hits a low battery state, you would either need PowerChute or setup the native XP UPS support.

Because it sounds like you would rather go the path of not using PowerChute please see our Kbase on how to setup native:
http://nam-en.apc.com/cgi-bin/nam_en.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2497

[BillP]

so adding on to what Cap1 said, powerchute is NOT required for the essential function of the UPS. It would provide graceful shutdown which is also available via the native support on XP as Cap1 mentioned previously. the LCD models have a lot of the functionality of powerchute already so they really are nice for your particular situation and not wanting to install the software.

[Anonymous user]

Thanks for the response. My computer is on only when attended, so I should have up to 3-4 minutes to shutdown my apps and computer when the UPS goes on battery.

[Anonymous user]

I'd like to ask a related question - I just installed a BE550R and set it up with native XP (SP3) support. I checked the KB article listed above and everything mentioned there is fine regarding device manager and what I see in control panel. The default setting was "No Action" for Low Battery Alarm and "Standby" for Critical Battery Alarm.

I did not want to leave the Critical Battery Alarm setting at Standby in case of a prolonged power outage so I set it to shutdown, thinking I would get a graceful shutdown of Windows. I'd prefer to not use hiberation (another 2GB of my hard drive gone.) I adjusted the percentages to 85% and 65%, respectively, and did a test. At 85% I got the low battery alarm. At 65% the screen went blank, it looked like a shutdown you get when you just switch off your power supply. When I restarted the PC, Windows Live mail and Folding@home both complained of improper shutdown.

Shouldn't you get a shutdown of Windows with this setting? If so, what should I set differently? I didn't really see any other places to make settings changes . . .

Or is installing Powerchute the only way to get Windows to shutdown properly?

[TheNotoriousKMP_apc]

Hello,

I would test it with PCPE and see where you get. When controlling via Native, Windows is doing whatever it wants to execute a shutdown. I find it difficult to believe though that you'll get a different reaction from installing PCPE which just executes a shutdown - essentially doing the same thing as Native's setup, with bells and whistles.

If you're willing to test that, please let us know the results.

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

I did a little more testing . . . if I set the critical battery alarm action to standby the PC goes to standby as expected. I then tried using the shutdown -s -c "test shutdown" -t 30 command in a cmd window; if you just type shutdown in a cmd window it will show you all of the command line options. That worked fine as well. If I can't get the shutdown alarm action to work properly then I will make the alarm action "no action" and then use the "run a program" setting to run the shutdown command listed above (with different settings). I'll try the shutdown alarm action shortly . . .